| Oracle® Retail Insights User Guide Release 17.0 E95062-02 |
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13-period calendar
A business calendar that contains 13 equal periods, each of 4 weeks (28 days) in length. Every fifth or sixth year, there are 53 weeks. The calendar has a 28-year cycle of 6 years, 5 years, 6 years, 6 years, and 5 years. See also 4-5-4 calendar, Gregorian calendar.
4-5-4 calendar
The default Retail Insights business calendar, in which each quarter contains 13 full weeks in three periods of 4 weeks, 5 weeks, and 4 weeks in length. The calendar can also be implemented as 4-4-5 or 5-4-4. See also 13-period calendar, Gregorian calendar.
additive fact
A fact column or measure that can be summed to arrive at a meaningful value. For example, the total daily sales values for every day of a week can be added together to arrive at the total sales value for the week. Contrast with positional fact. See also semi-additive fact.
ASN
Abbreviation for advance shipping notice, an electronic data interface (EDI) transaction from supplier to retailer that identifies the supplier number, order number, carton contents, and store or warehouse destination for a particular delivery.
attribute
In Oracle BI, a detail of a dimension in an Oracle BI repository. For example, Package Size is an attribute of the Product dimension. Attributes usually appear as columns of a dimension table.
baseline price
The price calculated for an item for a preconfigured duration (default 16 weeks), by calculating the average price when an item is not on promotion.
baseline sales
Sales calculated for an item for a preconfigured duration (default 16 weeks), by multiplying the baseline price times the baseline units of an item.
behavioralistic segment
A traditional form of segmentation that identifies target consumers or groups based on characteristics, including benefits sought, usage rate, readiness to buy, and occasions of purchase.
buyer
A person who develops business strategies and seasonal assortment plans to maximize the development of the brand, sales, and profits for a department or assigned area. The buyer identifies opportunities and recommends new products or concepts for the department.
buyer analyst
A person who assists the buyer in developing business strategies and seasonal assortment plans to maximize the development of the brand, sales, and profits for a department or assigned area. The buyer analyst identifies opportunities and recommends new products or concepts for the department.
campaign
The entire communication strategy for a specific marketing communications program. The marketing communications program is frequently in support of promotional events and individual promotions, but it can stand alone. Retailers execute several different types of campaigns, including advertising, direct marketing, and in-store marketing.
cannibalization
The reduction in sales of one item from its baseline sales when another item is on promotion. Retail Insights calculates this metric in conjunction with affinity items. When Item A, to which Item B has affinity, is promoted, any negative impact on Item B sales during this promotion period is referred to as cannibalization .
comparable (comp) sales
Sales within two specific periods (usually this year and last year) that can be used as measures of productivity and to understand business trends and growth. Comparable sales metrics also help to differentiate between revenue gains that come from new stores and operations at established stores.
comparable (comp) store
A store that is open for business for a set period of time (usually at least 53 weeks) and was in operation within the time period of analysis. In other words, comparable stores are established stores, rather than new or closed stores. Comparable stores can be used for comparative analysis in various areas such as profit, sales, margin, and merchandising.
confidence
Given an association rule that if X then Y, the frequency with which, in transactions in which the customer purchased X, they also purchased Y.
customer
A shopper who has bought from a retailer. A customer has one or more associated transactions in a sales transaction table.
customer segment
A preparation step for classifying each customer according to the customer groups that have been identified in the retailer's customer data. Segmentations can be broadly classified as demographic or behavioral (customers who shop at a particular retailer).
demographic segment
A traditional form of segmentation that identifies target customers based on characteristics including age, generation, income range, family size, presence of children, race, gender, education, and occupation.
dimension
A conceptual grouping that qualifies data at a general level. Metrics such as sales do not exist in isolation, but rather in the context of dimensions such as product, geography, and time. These dimensions define what type of data is available. When considering a metric such as sales, it is important to consider what data is available. Does sales information exist for each of my products? Is there sales data for each country, region, and state? Is there sales data exist for the last five years?
In Oracle BI, a dimension is a hierarchical organization of logical columns (attributes). One or more logical dimension tables can be associated with at most one dimension. A dimension can contain one or more hierarchies. There are two types of logical dimensions: dimensions with level-based hierarchies (structure hierarchies), and dimensions with parent-child hierarchies (value hierarchies). A particular type of level-based dimension, called a time dimension, provides special functionality for modeling time series data.
filter
In Oracle BI, criteria that are applied to attribute and metric (measure) columns to limit the results that are displayed when an analysis is run. For metric columns, filters are applied before the query is aggregated. They affect the query and thus the resulting values.
franchisee
A merchant who operates under a contractual agreement with a parent company under an established name. The parent company controls major business operation decisions for a franchise location.
geographic segment
A traditional form of segmentation that identifies target customers based on characteristics including region, size of metropolitan area, population density, and climate.
GMROI
Abbreviation for gross margin return on investment, an assessment of the amount of money earned or lost compared to the amount of money invested.
Gregorian calendar
The internationally accepted civil calendar with 12 months and 365 days per year (366 days in leap years). See also 13-period calendar, 4-5-4 calendar.
halo
The increase in sales of one item from its baseline sales when another item is on promotion. Retail Insights calculates this metric in conjunction with affinity items. When Item A, to which Item B has affinity, is promoted, any positive impact on Item B sales during this promotion period is referred to as halo.
hierarchy
In an Oracle BI repository, a system of levels in a logical dimension that are related to each other by one-to-many relationships. All hierarchies must have a common leaf level and a common root (all) level. Hierarchies are not modeled as separate objects in the metadata; instead, they are an implicit part of dimension objects.
historic baseline
The normal expected sales in the absence of any promotion. All baseline methods are modeled using previous non-promoted sales movement of a product to model (prediction) of what the expected sales of that product will be. Baseline volume can exceed total volume if expected sales are greater than actual sales. All the baseline metrics (units, profit, and sales) are calculated for a default period of 16 weeks, or other duration specified by system options for market basket analysis. The default weight age scheme is (1/2)^n; however, it can be configured.
This duration is divided into 2 equal periods. Using a 16-week period (the default configuration), to find baseline amount, use 8 weeks of sales before the promotional week, and 8 weeks of sales after the promotional week.
If the user-specified duration x weeks is not even, then (x-1)/2 weeks are used for pre-promotion sales and (x+1)/2 weeks for after-promotional sales.
household penetration
A percentage of households in a specific market that use or consume an item. The value is calculated by dividing the total number of households that buy a product by the total number of households in the market.
inventory
Finished items intended for sale. Inventory can also include items that may not be available for various reasons, such as designated display units or defective units being repaired. Inventory is recorded as an asset on a company's balance sheet.
inventory analyst
A person who conducts in-depth review of the business to drive sales. This includes identifying specific opportunities (for example, sales/stock relationships, underperformance) and recommending actions to be taken.
inventory manager
A person who replenishes stock in stores on a daily basis, tracks supplier service levels; collaborates with the commercial team and suppliers to improve efficiency. The inventory manager reviews and recommends refinements to parameters in IT reporting.
inventory position
The measure of the current level of owned inventory. Inventory position includes on-hand inventory (including reserved inventory), in-transit inventory, and on-order inventory.
invoice
A contractual document that specifies the money owed by the buyer to the seller. An invoice is an Itemized statement given by suppliers to retailers that lists purchased products, their prices, quantities, taxes, and other fees such as shipping and handling. It may also carry any discounts applied at the time of generating the invoice.
key performance indicator (KPI)
A measurement that defines and tracks specific business goals and strategic objectives. KPIs often roll up into larger organizational strategies that require monitoring, improvement, and evaluation. KPIs have measurable values that usually vary with time, have targets to determine a score and performance status, include dimensions to allow for more precise analysis, and can be compared over time for trending purposes and to identify performance patterns.
markdown
A reduction in the selling price of an item. Markdowns are often planned to boost sales of an item. The three kinds of markdowns are permanent, promotion, and clearance.
market basket analysis
The value of the total market basket relating to a class or subclass. This measure is meaningful when compared to the average market basket.
markup
The increase in the selling price of an item above cost or current selling price. Markup is the measurement of profit for each item and is similar to margin, which is the difference between the cost of the item and the selling price.
merchandising executive
A person who views and manages business goals and objects; roles such as buyer report to this person.
merchandise financial planner
A person who is responsible for financial seasonal planning of sales, stock levels, production requirements, and the control of purchases relative to planned levels of (for example) color, fabric, and branch/store volumes.
metadata
Data about data. Metadata objects include the descriptions of schemas (such as tables, columns, data types, primary keys, and foreign keys) and logical constructs (such as fact tables, dimensions, and logical table source mappings). The Oracle BI repository is made up of the metadata used to process queries.
metric
Measures or facts, typically numeric, that are the focus of a business intelligence investigation. Fact columns are columns in the data warehouse that contain the facts and are used to define metrics.
OLAP
Abbreviation for online analytical processing. Oracle BI is the OLAP user interface for Oracle Retail Insights reporting and analysis.
OLTP
Abbreviation for online transaction processing. Source systems for Oracle Retail Insights data are typically OLTP systems, such as transaction-based merchandising and pricing systems.
Oracle BI repository
A file that stores Oracle Business Intelligence metadata. The metadata defines logical schemas, physical schemas, physical-to-logical mappings, aggregate table navigation, and other constructs.
planning executive
A person who sets the strategic long-term targets from company to division level. The planning executive is responsible for merchandise planning organization and often has assortment planning, item planning, and allocation as responsibilities.
positional fact
A fact column or measure that cannot be summed to arrive at a meaningful result. For example, the ending stock-on-hand counts for an item for all the days of a week do not add up to a meaningful number. Contrast with additive fact. See also semi-additive fact.
pricing
The process of managing markups and markdowns for merchandise. Pricing is derived from factors such as cost, profit margin, quantity break, supplier quotes, and shipment or invoice date.
pricing analyst
A person responsible for pricing strategies for the company through combining the objectives set by the marketing department (increase revenues, decrease inventory) with historical and predictive analytics data.
promotion
The tactics a retailer undertakes to generate increased incremental sales volume for specific item-store combinations within a promotional event. Promotions are frequently communicated as part of a marketing campaign to ensure that awareness is generated with the target audience. Promotions are attempts to stimulate the sale of particular merchandise, by temporarily reducing the price, advertising the merchandise, or linking sales to offers of other merchandise at reduced prices or free.
prompt
In Oracle BI, a type of filter that allows the content designer to build and specify data values, or the end user to choose specific data values. A prompt expands or refines existing dashboard and analysis filters. See also filter.
psychographic segment
A traditional form of segmentation that identifies target customers based on characteristics including activities, interests, opinions, attitudes, and values.
retail type
The price type at which items were sold or held as inventory. There are four values for retail type:
Regular
Promotional
Clearance
Intercompany
sales pack
A grouping of items under one item number. A sales pack can be either a simple pack or a complex pack. A simple pack contains multiples of one component item. A complex pack contains multiple component items.
semi-additive fact
A fact column or measure that cannot be summed in the time dimension to arrive at a meaningful result, but for which a sum in other dimensions can be meaningful. For example, the ending on-hand values for an item for each day of a week do not add up to a meaningful result. On the other hand, the sum of the ending on-hand values for all items of a subclass can be added together to obtain the ending on-hand value of the subclass. See also additive fact, positional fact.
set of books
Separate financial accounting for a particular part of a company, within the same accounting system or in a physically separate system. A company may use multiple sets of books to separate accounting operations by brand/chain, country/currency, or other distinctive characteristic that makes separate financial accounting desirable.
subject area
In the Oracle BI repository, an object in the presentation layer that organizes and presents data about a business model. For Oracle Retail Insights, the subject areas are Retail As-Is, Retail As-Was, and Retail Point in Time. A subject area is also called a catalog. See also as-is reporting, as-was reporting, point in time reporting.
support
Given an association rule that if X then Y, the frequency with which, out of all transactions, the customer purchased both X and Y.
target customer (target prospect)
The ideal consumer who lives near your stores, consumes the products you sell, and that you want to attract into your stores.
threshold
A minimum purchase amount or quantity required for the purchaser to obtain a discount amount or percentage or other deal.
transaction count
The number of transactions carried out at a retailer's stores by all customers. This is different from customer trips, because there could be several transactions in one trip, but transactions are easier to quantify through the point-of-sale system.
